Determination, Rain or Shine
UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
Primary Sources
If you would like to learn about the experiences of various Asian Pacific American communities in the United States, the following collections of primary sources offer a glimpse into their daily lives.
Multi-Ethnic
- Archive Explorer (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new windowLarge database of primary sources from the publisher Adam Matthew. Includes links to databases related to Asian American immigration and American cultural exchange: Migration to New Worlds and China, America and the Pacific
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowLarge repository of primary sources. For documents related to Asian American activism see the databases Political Extremism and Radicalism and Archives of Sexuality and Gender.
- Immigration Records of the INS, 1880-1930 (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new windowContains late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Topics include Asian immigration, Mexican immigration, and European immigration.
- North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new windowContains personal narratives of Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian immigrants to the United States and Canada.
- Oral History Online This link opens in a new windowContains Oral Histories To locate them search interviews by place of birth (ie. Vietnam or China) or go to find collection and click on terms.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaTry searching for "Asian American" OR "Chinese American" OR "Korean American" OR "Japanese American" OR "South Asian American" OR "Filipino American" OR "Pacific Islander"
East Asian American
- DenshoDocuments on the Japanese American incarceration experience.
- Japanese American Relocation Digital ArchivePrimary Sources regarding the internment of Japanese Americans form the Online Archives of California.
- Korean American Digital ArchiveDocuments the experiences of Korean Americans from 1903-1965. From the USC Digital Library.
- Library of Congress Digital CollectionsCollections document Asian American history and include the Ansel Adam's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar.
South Asian American
- South Asian American Digital ArchiveSources on the South Asian diaspora from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many other nations.
- South Asian Oral History ProjectContains narratives of South Asian immigrants to the Pacific Northwest from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. From the University of Washington.
Southeast Asian and Pacific American
- SEEAAdoc and Southeast Asian ArchiveDocuments on the Southeast Asian experience from UC Irvine.
- The Vietnamese American Heritage ProjectDocuments the social and political history of Vietnamese Americans in the post-War period.
- The Vietnamese American Oral History ProjectContains oral histories of Vietnamese from UC Irvine.
- University of Hawaii, Manoa, Center for Oral HistoryContains oral histories of Native Hawaiians, African Americans and Japanese Okinawans.